I keep mulling over the data presented in this entry at the Rock Talk blog. I originally concluded that this, combined with the revelation that applications-per-PI only went from 1.2 to 1.5 across the FY98-FY11 interval, showed that the RealProblemTM at the NIH was the growth in the number of Principal Investigator mouths at the trough.As a reminder, these are data for the investigator-initiated Research Project Grants only and exclude the ARRA largesse. The graph shows change data from the baseline of Fiscal Year 1998. As a brief summary of my prior thoughts:

the post indicates an increase from an average of 1.2 applications submitted per investigator to an average of 1.5 per investigator from 1998 to 2011...This surprised many of us on the Twitters. I don't think I know of any active scientists who are submitting less than several NIH grant applications per year...if we harken back to some data on..the Rock Talk blog (maybe; UPDATED, it was RockTalk) which showed the average NIH PI had only about 2 grants concurrently then we must consider that there are still a LOT of folks out there on a single grant at a time. Especially if they have long-term continuations going, sure, maybe there are a lot of PIs who only have to submit an application once every 5 years. The post also indicates that there were 19,000 applicants in 1998 and this grew to 32,000 in 2011. Some 13,000 new mouths, a 68% increase in PIs seeking money from the NIH.

I've added emphasis to highlight what has been bothering me.

The notion that we have 68% more PIs seeking money from the NIH should have been more of a warning. The thing is, it dovetails nicely with one of the very truthy memes that we have going about the effects of the NIH Doubling interval. More people in the system made a certain sense. Particularly for those of us who were entering the system approximately during the doubling interval and did not feel as though it was easy to get a grant funded. Certainly, success rates did not double. In the historical sense the success rates were only moderately restored from a slide that ran from the late 80s (40% for experienced applicants. Think about that.) to about 1994 (25% for experienced applicants). So if the budget was doubled and success rates were far from doubled, there must be more people seeking funding. Right?

What never seemed possible to me was that traditional research-heavy Universities, who were already deep into NIH-addiction, were throwing up that many new jobs. Sure, they expanded their soft-money faculty positions a little bit...and let the occasional word-salad-position Assistant Adjunct Research Project Professor of Bunny Hopping upjumped postdoc submit a grant or two. But it didn't seem likely to me that this explained the budget/payline disparity. Nor, in context of Rockey's data, did a 68% increase in PIs at such places seem likely. So I was always asserting that the growth came in large part from the entry of new institutions into the system. In the sense that smaller, less research intensive Universities were, perhaps, putting on a big push to get in the NIH game. Perhaps this was by hiring new NIH-honcho faculty. Perhaps by pushing hard from the deanlet level to get the existing faculty to submit more grants, bring in more NIH moola. This latter hypothesis was fueled by rumor of this kind of behavior from some of my colleagues and friends so I was primed to believe it.

My new realization of the week is that the data from Rock Talking are misleading. The denominator for the grants-per-PI is calculated on a per-FiscalYear basis. It has to be, even though they don't say this. So you only get counted if you've submitted at least one grant in the FY. Similarly, the growth in the number of PIs from the 1998 baseline is likewise a reflection of the number of PIs submitting at least one competing grant application in a given FiscalYear. Again, they don't specify. I was perhaps assuming that this reflected the number of PIs in the system, i.e. submitting competing or noncompeting applications. In some senses, we also have to keep in mind the number of occasional applicants to the NIH...hard to believe from my perspective but sure, why not consider that there is a pool of PIs who may have repeated, but not continuous funding from the NIH across their careers?

As you can see, a full modular $250,000 year in 2011 has 69% of the purchasing power of that same award in 2001.

We'll return to this.

Let us start with consideration of what appears to be, going by disgruntleprof comments on various blogs and opinion pieces, the shining virtue of the NIH system...the one-R01 small town grocer. This PI submitted a grant application once every five years to continue her R01...in the old days. So on average this person would be submitting 0.2 grants per FY but in the Rockey analysis would only count as 1 grant-submitted...every five years. Over time, however, she is now facing a decreased probability of getting funded the first time and, let us say, submits an application three times (A2 scenario, not unlikely at all by the end of the doubling), a year apart, during her 5 year window. Her Rockey number is still 1 application per year but her 5 year average has increased to 0.6. Similarly, since we're dealing with the one-grant scenario, the appearance in the Number-of-Mouths data is likewise affected by the frequency of submissions. Taking the 3 tries case again, if she only had to apply twice every 10 years in the past but is now applying 6 times to maintain funding, she has tripled her presence in the Rockey way of looking at the number of applicants. If we're talking about an overall 68% change over time...this kind of behavioral change is significant if it occurs in any appreciable part of the PI distribution. It makes it look like there is a big change in the number of PIs that need to be fed when there have not, in fact, been two more PIs added to the system.

Getting back up to my original thoughts on where the RealProblemTM lies, however, this is all critical. Is the NIH in fact supporting 68% more investigators in 2011 vs 1998? This is what Sally Rockey's post would imply. It certainly implied this to me. However, it may simply reflect the same number of overall PIs in the NIH-funded extramural workforce who simply have to submit more grant applications to maintain the same number of grants.

Which brings me to my next point. Note that I said "same number of grants" but not "same amount of funding". Because it is also clear that over this self-same interval when SmallTownGrocerPI was forced to submit applications more frequently to sustain her funding, she was also forced to try to get more awards simply to maintain the same level of operation. Because the purchasing power of the grant dollars had fallen by so much and yet the full-modular cap still imposed a de facto limit on budget escalation. Now true, the "myth-busting" data from Rockey show only a 4-5% shift in 1-grant to 2-grant PIs from FY1986 to FY2004 when the doubling was rolling hard. This is where the simple case we are discussing really breaks down. Obviously there are many varieties and mixtures of PIs in terms of the number of applications submitted, the stable-versus-growth aspirations, the amount of NIH funding that represents stable state, the mixture of R01 and "other" funding, etc.

So obviously it would be a complex modeling job in the NIH databases to get the best understanding.

But it strikes me that one of the simplest and most productive things for the NIH (read: Sally Rockey's data mining minions) to do would be to take a closer look at the number of PIs applying instead of the number of applications. The number of PIs over an extended window of time, not just on a per-FY basis.

This reason that this is important to know is that the success of any proposed fixes to the NIH depend on this reality. If there has genuinely been an increase in the number of PIs then shelling some of them out of the system permanently (including by preventing entry) is the only way to have sustained effect. Within that category, it may be necessary to see if the growth in PIs has come from the top research Universities or from increases in the lower-tier Universities.

If the main trouble is the uncertainty of maintaining one award, then the solutions are to extend the interval of non-competing and/or give a much larger payline break to competing continuations versus new applications.

If the trouble is that the purchasing power of the full-modular has decreased, then boost the limit to $375K per year in direct costs. [ETA: per comment from Grumble, note that the purchasing power has also been eroded by habitual budget reductions upon funding. Some ICs cut a whole year. Some have made 1-2 module ($25K per module) reductions the SOP. Some hit even non-competing renewals with additional reductions because of budgetary uncertainty. They do this to artificially prop up the success rates. Take one module from 9 awards and you can fund 10.]

It is incredibly frustrating for those of us who watch from the outside since these data are clearly available within the NIH databases and they simply seem to be looking* in the wrong direction.

__
*I realize that Sally Rockey may have a ton of analyses that she simply has not put up on the blog. Somehow, given her little oopsie with the alternative career fate of trainees, I doubt it.

When is the last time you or anyone you know actually got awarded the full $250k/year modular limit? Everyone applies for this level, and nowadays you're extremely lucky if they only cut one module - typically it's two. So the purchasing power of a grant is now closer to 50% less than it was 10, 12 years ago, not 69%.

Yeah it seems like a reasonable explanation is that 80% of PIs w/ one grant or so get it renewed pretty much every time (small-town grocers or otherwise), and it's the 20% who have more trouble that are responsible for the "churn."

to be clear kevin, this is by no means the case anymore. it is the growing uncertainty in continuing a "reasonably productive" single grant even during the doubling interval that I was trying to describe here.

Isn't the data in NIH Reporter already? I'm not altogether sure of exactly what question you want to answer here, but given that one can create XL spreadsheet of all RO1 grants at NIH Reporter, it seems that the data is available for outside crunching.

My gut impression is that there are more PI's applying for grants and that more PI's are applying for more grants (both to sustain the level of funding with cuts & uncertainty & because more costs are being shifted into direct costs of grants, including the PI salary), and that the main increase comes from an increase in the population of applicants from major research institutions (i.e. the opposite of your gut).

A spreadsheet at NIH reporter listing the number of higher ed institutions funded (under the organization tab) suggests that the number of organizations receiving funding has decreased between 2003-2012 (from 505->451) and the number of grants/organization has increased (for 70->76). That's informing my gut a little bit, though it doesn't take into account all the data.

If you look at concentrated research centers, my question would be who is filling the giant new buildings that have gone up in the last 10 years. But yeah, they are not even close to looking at the data in a meaningful way.

I haven't seen anyone mention this, so I apologize if it’s been covered before, but i suspect that clinical trial grants, SBIR and various set-asides have eaten into the NIH extramural budget in the past ten/twenty year period. While it’s all arguably a good use of government money- a case can be made that the private sector should be doing a lot of more of the clinical trials and biotech start-up stuff; or that they shouldn’t be done at all.

There are likely a few problems with doing an FOIA request for this info. I suspect they might first try to hide behind exemptions b(4) or b(6) which are confidential business information or personal privacy.

Also, unless the request is deemed to be important to the public good and not due to financial interests of the requesters, they could charge for it, and I bet the $$$ would be severe.

Do the budget calculations pertaining to "the doubling" take into account possible changes in overhead rates? I can't find the historical data on indirects. Did the average overhead rate change during the doubling? If this is so, it helps explain why twice the money probably did not translate into twice the research but instead promoted the proliferation in administrators, Jr. deans, and buildings.

Obviously, overheads are irrelevant for analyses based on "number of applicants." But many of the graphs in your last post on this topic had the NIH budget as the Y-axis, so I assume these data include overheads. In addition to adjusting for inflation, should we be correcting for "overhead creep?"

DM-SBIR is a Congressional requirement. Best to think of those types of monies as off the books.

Well… it is part of the 30B budget under discussion, was pumped disportionately during the “doubling” ,and thus is on the books. It may well be that SBIR was sold to congress as separate additional funds (good). Or was it the politicians telling NIH how to divvy their money among the constituencies (not as good). Don’t get me wrong, personally, I love SBIR money, wish I had more of it.

Please tell me where you get 2. The mean, median and mode of the RockTalk figure are clearly 1 (1.2 at best by an eyeballing). One. So: The average NIH PI had only 1 grant concurrently. One.

Even if I have 1 .... there's no way I only reapply once in 5 years. More like I keep trying every cycle for that 2nd R01 and that R03 and that R21 and and and ... because I have to. Because that's what my P&T wants to see. Because my one R01 buys me less. Because funding lines are going down. Because my department funds less students and less bridge and the only solution is moar moneys and the only way to get it is spaghetti at the wall.

to be clear kevin, this is by no means the case anymore. it is the growing uncertainty in continuing a "reasonably productive" single grant even during the doubling interval that I was trying to describe here.

Agreed. At least in our lab's case, the R01 has been continuously renewed, but the PI is submitting a new proposal to support an interesting new direction (paid for by grant #1). Whether this should be considered necessary in light of declining $ or is part of the natural growth of the lab isn't clear.

I would enjoy knowing whether it's the same pool of investigators who are putting together the winning and the failing grants, or if it's an even split. I could see it being that some people are just really good or really bad writers.

DM--I haven't a clue if average indirect rates have changed, hence my question. I just figured that during the doubling, institutes would try to justify getting a bigger piece of the pie. I doubt that the average for all institutes has gone down; this seems about as likely as sales tax rates going down.

Susan- it is possible that I was looking at the top20% chart on Rock Talk when I made this prior comment.

Kevin- I am likewise interested in the failures. How many are once-applied, never-seen? How many apply 5 times and give up? How many apply 10, 20, 30 times without a hit? Etc. and how do those numbers break down by various PI and institutional parameters.

This is really interesting. NSF is much more transparent, I think, about their data. (The latest report to the NSB is here: http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2012/nsb1228.pdf)
Figure 9 "provides the funding rate for investigators (the number of investigators receiving a grant divided by the number of investigators submitting proposals)." Digging around, the percentage of proposals funded is 22% for FY 2011 (Table 2), but the percentage of PIs funded was given as 38% (Figure 9).

They had an interesting analysis of how many proposals until a PI was funded, which seems to be about 2.3 at NSF, but the figure (and Appendix 8) don't seem to say exactly how the numbers were generated year to year.

What never seemed possible to me was that traditional research-heavy Universities, who were already deep into NIH-addiction, were throwing up that many new jobs.

I'm not sure I agree with your intuition here. Certainly my former institution (R1 Medical School) threw up an expensive new research building* and dreamed that it would soon be filled with new PIs, all with X RO1s a piece. Conversations with my peers at meetings suggests that many other R1 medical schools did the same during the early 2000's.

*Not that the faculty ever suggested that we needed such a thing. The decision was made entirely at the dean and above level.

Did you read through to the end of the post? Did you read my first one on this topic?

This discussion is premised on the idea that there is something wrong with the NIH extramural granting process and the state of being an NIH-funded investigator at present. If you don't think this is true, move along.

If you think this is true, then you are either concerned about fixing it, or not. If not, move along.

If you are concerned about fixing it, then you should be (my assertion here) concerned about understanding just where the problems lie, what are the implications of different proposed fixes, etc. If you are not, move along.

The reason is that different fixes may be able to address one problem but not another. Or they may be differentially effective at solving different aspects of the problem. etc.

This was the point of Rockey's "myth-busting" post. If the "problem" is too many investigators with >2, >4, >6 grants (or you can make it total direct costs if you like)...then you need to know how many of them there are and whether taking the money / grants from them will have any effect on "the problem".

What I am trying to grapple with here is the conventional wisdom that there are too many investigators. More pertinently, that the doubling led to a massive increase in the total number of investigators. Reason being, if this is supported, then we need to get a significant number of warm bodies out of the system.

If a lot of the problem (and here I am addressing grant success rates, paylines, etc) is that the same investigators have to write a lot more applications to get the same amount of money at a stable and predictable rate, then there are other fixes that will suffice.

Look at it this way...if you have a lab that has enjoyed, on average, $500K in direct costs almost uninterrupted for the past 20 years then the system has validated this lab's presence and contributions within the system. Any time the PI has spent chasing the grants, instead of doing the science, in the past 20 years is an inefficiency in the NIH process. and a waste of money.

One on one you can say that "who can predict so we need this process". But if you said "huh the data show that we have something like 75% of our 20 yr funding vets in this category of continuous stable funding" well then you can start to assume you could stand some reform.

In Canada, ~70% of CIHR grantees hold a single operating grant they represent about 55% of the total funding in that category (bear in mind avg CIHR grant is about $120K but doesn't contribute to PI salary). Would be interesting to know if the distribution of RO1's in terms of # per PI has changed as the funding line has dropped. This will have impacts on total applicant #, consistency of funding and application numbers. It's a downward spiral fueled by reduced funding lines (and reduced purchasing power per funded grant).

"Look at it this way...if you have a lab that has enjoyed, on average, $500K in direct costs almost uninterrupted for the past 20 years then the system has validated this lab's presence and contributions within the system. Any time the PI has spent chasing the grants, instead of doing the science, in the past 20 years is an inefficiency in the NIH process. and a waste of money."

Bingo.

It's a simple question: are even old NIH hands writing more grants per awarded grant nowadays than 10 years ago? Or is that a problem specific to noobies? If NIH won't part with this data, one way to get it would be to survey PIs. But that takes time and money. Hey, maybe we can write a grant to NIH to get it...

I was actually trying to ask a much more specific question -- not why is this all importsnt anyway, but what number do people need to know to address the problem. (well, and what the problem'is -- is it the time wasted writing and reviewing grants? is it the insecurity of the grant-funded career? is it a decrease in the quality of science done?)

Is the number we want to know the number of grants submitted by funded investigators with different lengths of funding history? (and the their success rate ) and the changes in the number over time?. I guess I'm looking for a mockup of the graphs that would answer the critical questions.

I actually think NIH is not purposefully obscuring the information, though I think they have different interests than the investigators they fund. Therefore, i think if a particular data set was requested, there's a reasonable probability ofgetting the info. I do think that NIH correctly believes that any system that sounds like tenure for government funding will not be politically viable.

As a recipient of steady RO1 funding over >20 yrs, usually at >$500k direct, I have had to submit more applications (RO1, R21, PO1) in recent years -and spend the time writing them- than I would think reasonable to keep the ship afloat. If productivity is to be measured by the number of publications in decent journals, then the NIH has been getting a very decent return on their investment in my lab (publications since '92: >350; h-index:>100) based on all reasonable criteria. This is true especially in comparison with the accomplishments of IRG panel members who shoot down applications that -in my own judgment- are at least as good, if not better than what I submitted 3, 5, 10 years ago. It is galling to see that -over the period of a single RO1 5-year cycle - my lab typically publishes more papers in decent journals (IF>8) than some of the panel members who assess my proposals and productivity have produced over their entire careers. The IRGs that I have served on generally have low participation of seasoned, senior investigators, and so the argument that 20 years of continuous, sustained productivity -including the most recent progress reports and publications- should stand for something mostly falls on deaf ears. I am convinced that being well-resourced is a strike against an otherwise productive applicant, and that IRGs would rather reward pedestrian, solid work from the single and only RO1 renewal applicant (the sympathy vote) than take a real hard look at the expected return on the investment.

To be fair he does have a point about some reviewers. When your grants are evaluated by oldies who haven't had an NIH grant for years and rarely publish, I'm not sure that's ideal and its understandable that resentment sets in. I think reviewers should have to have NIH funding to sit on study sections.

I have never been on a panel with anyone who matches that description. Nor can I recall ever seeing such a person pop up in rosters reviewing my proposals.

If anything, the less vigorously engaged scientists are more likely to be snowed by the latest, greatest cutting edge shine jobbe. IME.

OTOH I am quite familiar with an entitled, senior PI phenotype that doesn't realize everyone else has a great idea and does great science. And that we can't fund all of them. And that junior and mid career folks are also spending far too much time writing applications for funding. Those types most certainly do exist. IME.

But you saw my summary statement. Only 1 of the 5 (not including the chair) on the SEP had a PI RPG, at least according to reporter, and the 1 that did is a bit of a BSD-type and is the only one publishing regularly in relevant journals (duh!). I had never heard of any of the others and nor had my boss.

All were full professors and one was even a fucking dean of god-knows-what so probably doesn't need grants anymore.....or something. I just think it's an interesting observation when non-NIH grant holders are reviewing NIH grants.

IME, a lot depends on the ability of the SRO's to rope in competent reviewers. I think that IRGs with a long and strong tradition of involving leaders in their fields in the review process do a better job than IRGs thrown together haphazardly (and have an easier time recruiting reviewers that have the necessary credibility among the applicants) . IRGs that have shown a historic tendency to protect their turf and exclude newcomers are not exactly unknown. I'd be curious to know how the stats work out for IRGs in established fields and active for a long time, versus the panels put together on a more ad hoc basis

My limited experience is in line with DM RE: SRG. I do regularly hear comments like HP's (for example, from former PI) about incompetent retread study sections. Conversely, my experience with the seasoned, experienced, senior reviewers is that they are also the ones more likely to favor track record over actual proposal and names on the grant (or pedigrees) with a little more weight than the words on the page. So I don't think we solve problems this way. I think we solve some people's problems. At 10% paylines, once you hand out all of the "trust this dude, great track record" grants, there is nothing left. And did I say "dude"? That is another likely subconscious problem with the masters of the universe review panels.

Great in the sense that the BSDs think that their stuff is great and deserves funding at whatever current payline exists. I think equivalent science is proposed to at least 2X the payline at present. Maybe 3X.

Also keeping in mind that a healthy scientific ecosystem builds the framework for major new discoveries- you know all the good not great science that the great science stands on top of- a balance between incremental and revolutionary is good.

once you hand out all of the "trust this dude, great track record" grants, there is nothing left

That's no reason not to consider a track record-based grant system - or, more accurately, a system that reduces grantwriting workload for experienced PIs by awarding some portion of funding via grants that don't require a detailed proposal, but are evaluated solely on track record. Such a system would not work at all if PIs were simply awarded every cent they asked for. (I'd just ask for $1 billion.) There would have to be an upper limit per PI, and that limit should take into account how much is leftover for traditional grants.

Grumble, this system already exists in practice, because grants are written with obviously little effort and state things like "our track record is convincing". A 12 page executive summary is not too much to ask for accounting of dollars. There are also Merit grants.

Not only does the program-based system work in practice, there's a good chance that wagon circling behavior in these tough times is worsening this trend. And yet the old established types who think they deserve everything that they request (as they have been accustomed to expect) yammer for even *more* program-based evaluation/award.

Mid career folks fall into this trap because they think it is *their turn* and that formalizing program-based support will give them the bennies the older generation enjoyed. I agree it is *my* turn (natch) but am not certain expansion of program-based support is the way to go. I have other fixes that I think would make it fairer for all, including me.

HP “As a recipient of steady RO1 funding over >20 yrs, usually at >$500k direct, I have had to submit more applications (RO1, R21, PO1) in recent years -and spend the time writing them- than I would think reasonable to keep the ship afloat. (publications since '92: >350; h-index:>100)”
Well, that is obviously a good run! But, HP, what does that put you at -60 ish with approximately a paper published every month for the last 20yrs? Personally I’ve noted a decline in my creativity and the flexibility of my intellect from my 20s (now eary40s). I’m looking for an exit strategy by my 50s. It looks something like 100-150k of non-competitive funding and hard money salary for my golden years (60yrs on). You know, a technician or graduate student if they are bright and don’t get on my nerves too much.
Of course I’ll probably sing a different tune 20yrs on. With the crunch in funding it is natural that we are at each other with knives drawn. That crunch is the underlying problem. OTOH, after witnessing the "doubling" i have faith that the biomedical complex could phagocytise 10X the amount and we would be in the same place in a couple of yrs.

Another problem with HP's view is that the current cohort is not, on average, getting its FIRST RO-1 until about age 44. It is a whole lot more likely that one will rack up 200+ papers and an H-index >50 if one has had a hive of 5-20 worker bees making honey for the PI to put his name on. The difference between building a productive group in one's early or mid 30s vs. one's mid to late 40s is vast. The major reason that the latter is more common now has nothing to do with today's investigators sucking and everything to do with structural trends in the workforce.

"grants are written with obviously little effort and state things like "our track record is convincing"."
It's only the biggest of the BSDs that can get away with this. In fact, I've never seen it, and I've reviewed grants from some pretty big pooh-bahs. So I totally disagree with you that the system in place is anything at all like what I proposed.

"A 12 page executive summary is not too much to ask for accounting of dollars."
It's too much to ask if you have to submit 10 of them to get 1. You make it sound like a 5 minute breeze to put together a 12 page grant. Even for experts, it's not.

"There are also Merit grants."
There aren't enough of them, and again only the biggest of BSDs get them. Expansion of this program might be a good thing, though.

DM:
"Mid career folks fall into this trap because they think it is *their turn* and that formalizing program-based support will give them the bennies the older generation enjoyed. "
Trap? You have yet to explain why it's a trap, or a bad idea. You've complained that it's not fair to the young 'uns, but I don't think it has to be unfair to them. If one just took the current allocation of $ to old farts, mid-career aspirants, and total noobies, and then simply freely awarded (based on track record) some of the money that old farts/mid careers now have to waste gobs of time writing grants to get, would that really be so unfair?

For instance, there could be a piece of the pie dedicated just to noobies, so that the funding rate would be exactly the same under that system as it is now. Then, as they prove themselves, they are rewarded with more stable funding and less grantwriting effort. Why not?

Grumble, I just don't see how you make sense. PIs with very good track records do not have to write 10 grants to get 1. Perhaps we are not clear on what level of track record gets you into the magic money pile. The less money there is, it makes sense to justify the funding to greater and greater extents. If paylines were 30%, it might be possible for what you say to be reasonable, but I don't see how it can be justified when there are no dollars. Many more people have proven themselves than there is funding for.

In my experience, I have seen a lot of "trust me" grants, so we differ on that one.

Maybe experienced PIs have a better than 1:10 funding ratio, but the whole discussion was started with the point that we don't know what that ratio is, and whether it has gotten worse lately even for experienced PIs.

And I don't really agree with the sentiment that "the less money there is, [the more] it makes sense to justify the funding." If everyone is wasting time writing grants that go unfunded rather than doing science, this just makes for less productivity under precisely the conditions where we need every dollar to stretch farther. Unlike the stock market, in science, past performance is a strong predictor of future results, so why not use that indicator?

(Here's an idea: give experienced PIs a choice between (a) small-but-consistent awards that come with the stipulation that the PI can't have concurrent R01s - or can't have more than $X in additional NIH funding - or (b) the freedom to compete for R01s in the pool with the rest of us. Again, the basic idea is to keep allocation of money to about the same proportions among different classes of competitors as currently, but reduce the workload and anxiety level for at least some people.)

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Who will decide and what are the metrics? How will it not be a star chamber? If it makes the pool smaller for those competing for the rest by writing grants, doesn't it make their grant writing more onerous? I'm not trying to be argumentative. It sounds vaguely like college football.

"If it makes the pool smaller for those competing for the rest by writing grants, doesn't it make their grant writing more onerous?"
Past performance-based grants would not necessarily make the pool smaller for everyone else if the pool of money dedicated to such grants were limited, and if recipients' ability to obtain further funding through the traditional proposal system were limited. The choice ought to be up to the PI: slow and steady funding based on record, or compete with everyone else based on proposal and promise.

"Who will decide and what are the metrics? How will it not be a star chamber?"
Imagine being asked to review a grant based solely on the Investigator and Environment criteria. If an applicant has solid publications and a collaborative environment with good equipment for what you know the PI does, you'd give her a good score. If she consistently publishes outstanding papers that you think move the field forward by leaps and bounds, you'd give her a great score. If she's a hack who publishes the same study over and over again with minor variations, you'd give her a poor score. Then program staff and council would decide who gets funded and by how much based on the scores and available funds. Under such a system, "good" but not "great" PIs could still get funded just as they do now, so it doesn't have to be a "star chamber" any more than the current system is.

As has been said before further up the page, I would bet a significant portion of additional applications are directly attributable to increased pressure from deanlets. Expectations for salary coverage from grants never seem to go down, only up. Sure, the actual # of funded 1RO1 vs. 2RO1 PI's is not much different nowadays, but more people are "trying" to become 2RO1 PI's.

I used to be one of those Small-Town-Grocer single RO1 type PI's until about a year ago, when it came time to renew my single RO1. At that time our administrators revised the rules on salary expectations, writing in rules on salary cuts if coverage drops below the required amounts. I am now wholeheartedly a fan of the "crap-shoot approach" - when they're funding 1 in 20 grants, you'd better submit 20 grants even if you want to stay a single Ro1 PI.

"This will increase the dependence on the three assigned reviewers highly subjective opinion, won't it? "

Isn't that already the case? How many IRG members read applications other than those assigned to them? How many can judge the validity of R1,R2's assessments based on R1's honey-tongued oratory or R2's poor syntax/broken English? How often does one run into an IRG member who casts a quick glance on the biosketch, raffles through the specific aims and then endorses one or the other extreme opinion?

IMHO, grant scores are already based on three reviewers' highly subjective opinions. I think one can objectively rate a grant as Good or Bad, and everything within those levels is entirely subjective. When fine differences are used as a basis for funding decisions, the end result is a bullshit-acious crapshoot.

The same Good vs Bad objectivity resolution level would probably be the case with scoring based on past performance - but the critical difference is that presumably a much greater proportion of applicants would get funded. So the system would be less subject to subjectivity.

As for GlamourDouchery, it really doesn't have to be the case that glamour mag pubs become a requirement for funding, just as it isn't the case now.

Yes and no. The reason that StockCritiques appear so commonly is that they are reinforced by the communication with the rest of the panel. These tend to focus on rapidly verifiable parts of the app that the panel can rapidly identify. Values of "good but not great contribution to subsubsubfield" do not help to decide when the assigned reviewers are 3 pts apart on score.

Your points are well taken, but arguing we already have a system that is somewhat arbitrary based on human failings as possible support to make it more arbitrary (increase the subjectivity of the criteria by reducing the paper trail or making it more cosmetic). If you are the famous and highly accomplished Hidde Ploegh, when you are on study section do you read additional grants?

I definitely try to.

The points you mention about grant scores being sensitive to the oratory of the reviewer and possible bias (whether subconscious or conscious) against non-english speakers as presenters I do think are valid, based on my limited experience. One would hope that the section chair would be active in supporting the discussion, and that other panel members would speak up. If I were the boss of the section I would have quaternary review assignments where the assignment would relate to having to read x grants outside of ones pile and the submitted critiques, with no written assignments except possibly a check box or form ranking the critiques as applicable. And these assignments would be much closer to the actual expertise of the reviewer. It would be more work, but it would essentially be the work that you would want to happen in the section anyway.

The more I think about it the less facetious it seems to simply use the peer process to narrow down to the best 50% of grants and then just have the PO pick the winners out of a hat. The only other necessary rule would be that a PI is restricted to one application per grant mechanism per cycle (e.g. 3 RO1 applications per year).

Arguments:

1) The empirical data suggests that the current system already operates as a lottery above the basic triage of the objectively obvious dross applications (which is consistent with historical evidence and philosophical theorizing that scientists are as useless at predicting where, when and how significant scientific breakthroughs will happen as anyone else and their Magic 8-balls).

2) We wouldn't have to argue about A1s and A2s because nobody would care how many times the same application has been submitted (so long as it is still good enough to make the top 50%). This would mean a lot less grant writing because the same grant could be submitted with very few alterations for as long as it consistently gets rated in the top 50% making it into the hat. And the incentive to simply use the extra time to write more grants in order to up one's chances would be restricted by the 1 application per cycle criterion.

3) The whole process would be race/gender/age/sexiness blind.

4) Savings on administrative costs by removing the need for study section meetings would probably fund a good few extra RO1s or so

Arguments against:
1) It's a ridiculous way of running the scientific endeavour

Rebuttal to the arguments agains:
1) Yes, it is ridiculous. And yet arguably no less so than the current model, but a damn site cheaper in terms of time, labor and capital.

My proposal doesn't mean to do that- I like peripheral expertise as main reviewers (not all), but if there is one reviewer that is much more on top of the subfield, that person can dominate the other two, and if the panel has not really followed along, they might go with that dominant reviewer. My proposed system is a little bit of a backstop on that. In my limited experience, I thought the section was a little bit more on the quiet side than I expected, but I also though reviewers were extremely good. That said, I felt that reviewers who were quieter or english was sub-optimal did seem to generate less enthusiasm from the panel.

As to dsks, I don't think it is a lottery among the top 40%. I think it is a lottery between 10ish-30ish.

Changing anything with money like this is pretty meaningless, I have a feeling. I also think the perception is that the Grumble method will maintain or extend any current disparities. I guess it doesn't hurt to talk about it.

Will the real HP please stand up? Certainly not the BSD otherwise know as Hidde Ploegh!

As of now, the Ploegh-meister has, count them, 3 R01's, only one is modular ($1.6M) AND a DP1 ($975K) AND a R21 ($292K) as a little cherry on top. One lab gets to eat $2.87M in directs (IDC's - cha-ching!) from the NIH teet.

The guy is a grant writing god, and meanwhile he laughs upon all of us piglets squealing on this blog. Especially @ Pinko Punko. I'm sure a BSD like him would grace us with a posting on DM's blog!

Very late, but we have discussed this before and Eli just found the smoking gun. Something like 80% of all doctorates are awarded by the very high research activity universtities. Cutting down the number is going to have to start at the top

'Something like 80% of all doctorates are awarded by the very high research activity universtities. "

Is this supposed to be surprising? Universities with research labs have graduate students in the sciences. Those without labs don't have science graduate students. Graduate students eventually get degrees.

No, fucker, it means that if you want to do something about this you are going to have to shut down the University of California, or restrict the size of graduate programs at a whole bunch of R01s. Closing up the weaker programs don't do shit.

Which supports the theory that already-NIH-funded institutions added faculty. (I suspect soft-money faculty. Following the theory that if the new faculty got grants, they would increase the institution's bottom line, but if they didn't then the institution wasn't out too much. Since they didn't have to pay them.)

Anyway, this was a big debate earlier in this thread. Wanted to point out that new data was here.

First, there was a 58% increase in applicant institutions for RPGs from late 90s to now. Interesting bit is that there was only a 15% increase in *successful* institutions. (obvious bubble in between seems to have deflated, of course).

But even so, if the breakdown here is between institutions with 1 or more prior application and institutions with zero it doesn't give enough resolution. I'm would be unsurprised if there is a big threshold/hurdle at going from zero to one. Think of all the administrative stuff that has to be in place.

The real question is if the small time university has ramped up the number of applications. This needs to be broken down by ranking Universities by the number of apps submitted. Then we can see if the increased applications are proportional, coming from the traditional greedybags universities (TGBU) or coming from the wannabes.

[…] Often it has seemed that much of the scientific community believes the answer is, more federal funding. I’m a proponent of federal support for research (and I have benefited directly from it), but I’m not convinced that simply throwing more money, even if it could be found and the investment in research justified, will solve the problems. Why? Just over a decade ago, biomedical funding increased rapidly over a few years years. But immediately after that planned rapid growth ended, grant success fell quickly. More applications went in and grant budgets rose. At the same time, the annual production of PhD graduates began to surge (coincidentally, just five years after the start of the funding influx). More cash was put into the system to fix the problems of the day; the system responded by creating an even greater demand for funds (or as DrugMonkey says, too many mouths at the trough). […]

[…] money appointment. Some of them manage to get in a position to apply for NIH grants. Increasing the number of mouths at the trough. While budgets stay fixed and their supervising Professors (remember them? look up) do not retire […]

[…] continue to wring its hands about the fate of new investigators for another forty years. There are too many applicants for too few funds. It amps up the desperation and amps up the biases for and against. It decreases the resistance of […]